Audio 4:12
PM's speech prompts a redefinition of misogyny

Winsome DenyerUpdated
Wed Oct 17 18:57:00 EST 2012

The Prime Minister's fiery speech to Parliament accusing Tony Abbott of misogyny has prompted the Macquarie Dictionary to broaden its definition of the word. Opposition politicians have called it an extraordinary and alarming move, but linguists argue the definition has been evolving for decades.

Transcript

BRENDAN TREMBATH: Last week the Prime Minister made international headlines for her speech in Parliament, accusing the Opposition Leader of misogyny. Julia Gillard was then criticised for misusing the word, some even calling her a liar.

Today, the Macquarie Dictionary announced it will broaden its definition, in light of the speech. Some Opposition politicians have called it an extraordinary and alarming move, but linguists argue the definition has been evolving for decades.

JULIA GILLARD: Look, I will leave editing dictionaries to those whose special expertise is language.

WINSOME DENYER: Nevertheless, the debate over the meaning of misogynist rages on. And has done since the Julia Gillard accused Tony Abbott of being one in her now famous speech last week in Parliament.

JULIA GILLARD: I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man! I will not! And the Government will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man. Not now, not ever.

WINSOME DENYER: It was a defining moment for The Prime Minister, and now, the Macquarie Dictionary. Macquarie's current entry for misogyny reads: 'the hatred of women'. But the dictionary's editor, Susan Butler, says that's out of date.

SUSAN BUTLER: The debate certainly brought it to our attention. I always think of myself as the person with the mop and the broom and the bucket, you're sort of coming in and cleaning up the language after the party's over. And in this case it was a fairly big party, and what was left on the floor was 'misogyny'.

WINSOME DENYER: Susan Butler denies Julia Gillard's speech created a new definition for misogyny. But she says it did make the word highly visible.

SUSAN BUTLER: You're not really saying that they have a pathological sickness, that they should be on a psychiatrist's couch discussing their early relations with their mother or anything like that. They don't have this hatred that extends to all women, they merely have what we think of as sexism, an entrenched prejudice.

WINSOME DENYER: The new Macquarie definition will become: 'an entrenched prejudice against women'.

SIMON MUSGRAVE: This seems to be an instance where one person's usage of a word is causing a rethink about the usage more generally. But I don't think the dictionary would be considering changing the definition if they didn't think that that more usage was out there. That they wouldn't be changing just because the Prime Minister had used the word in a particular way.

WINSOME DENYER: Dr Simon Musgrave is a lecturer in linguistics at Monash University. He says the meaning of misogynist has been evolving for decades.

SIMON MUSGRAVE: This has already been reflected by the Oxford English Dictionary which in its current definition has misogyny defined as 'hatred or dislike of or prejudice against women'. And that's been the definition in the OED since 2002.

In fact, even in 1656, the earliest citation that the Oxford Dictionary has, and it lists it as 'the hate or contempt of women'. So even then perhaps there was a sense that hatred was not the only emotion that could be covered by this word.

WINSOME DENYER: Dr Musgrave says dictionaries are essentially defined by the social majority.

SIMON MUSGRAVE: Lexicographers, the people who make dictionaries, aim to reflect the usage that they read and hear around them. They don't try to redefine words in order to change people's behaviour; they try to show what the people's behaviour actually is and record it.

WINSOME DENYER: That means even if someone interprets a word incorrectly, if enough people use it in that sense, so will the dictionary.

SIMON MUSGRAVE: In general we think that language changes because people want to sound more like someone else who they think sounds better than they do. And that's a kind of a general process which happens without people thinking about it too closely.